


Lost Bearings

by fireflysglow_archivist



Category: Firefly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-02-02
Updated: 2006-02-02
Packaged: 2019-04-29 12:15:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,463
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14472540
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fireflysglow_archivist/pseuds/fireflysglow_archivist
Summary: How exactly did Simon rescue River from the Academy?  Here we begin with the unlikely ally he found on the inside.





	Lost Bearings

**Author's Note:**

> Note from alice ttlg, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [Firefly’s Glow](https://fanlore.org/wiki/Firefly%27s_Glow), and was moved to the AO3 as part of the Open Doors project in 2018. I tried to reach out to all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are the creator and would like to claim this work, please contact me using the e-mail address on [Firefly's Glow collection profile](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/fireflysglow/profile).

Lost Bearings

## Lost Bearings

It was the end of term, and Jared had just returned home from the St. Michael's Men's Academy. He was one semester away from graduation, which meant his parents would be pestering him about a career path soon. Thing was, nothing in particular interested Jared. School was something of a bore, he received top marks, though he wasn't at the head of his class, but it meant nothing to him. As he got dressed for his first social function since coming home, Jared thought about how dull the night was going to be since everyone would be asking him about his future. Looking into the mirror at his reflection, Jared saw nothing in store for him. 

A knock at the door broke his reverie. "Yes?" Jared called out. 

The door swung open and a striking woman dressed in a deep green chiffon gown glided into the room. Though fifty-four, Fiona Keen looked at least ten years younger, mostly due to the effects of plastic surgery. Jared's mother was like any rich socialite, vain and willing to spend whatever it took to make her outshine every other woman her age. She stood in the doorway inspecting him, clearly disappointed that he did not meet her expectations. 

"Jared, dear, are you really wearing the crimson ascot? You know it doesn't suit your complexion." 

Barely containing his irritation at her condescending tone, Jared said, "Of course not, Mother. I was only waiting for you so that I might ask for your superior judgment." 

It appeared that some of his irritation came through since her dark eyes narrowed. "Don't give me that flip attitude. We need to make an impression tonight. In case you were unaware, and I'm sure you were, some very important people will be attending the ball tonight, and I want them to notice you...In a good way that is. I do hope that you don't cause another scene like the last time." 

Inwardly, Jared laughed wickedly, careful not to let any of his inner mirth show outwardly lest he incense his mother. Last time he had attended one of these boring soirees, Jared had drunk his weight in champagne, at least it had seemed like his weight, and then promptly got up on the buffet table and started ridiculing every puffed up peacock in the room. Very few people had escaped his diatribe unscathed, so needless to say not many had found his drunken escapade as funny as he did. Thinking back on the incident, Jared was rather surprised that he had even been invited tonight. 

Noticing that his mother seemed to be waiting for some kind of response, Jared snapped out of this fond recollection and said, "You needn't worry, Mother. I will be on my best behavior tonight." 

"See that you are," she replied icily before sweeping out of the room. The moment she disappeared, Jared rolled his eyes and flopped down in the nearest chair. It would be a very long night. 

Three hours later, this very thought reoccurred to him in all its truth and accuracy. Predictably, Jared was mildly shunned by most of the people present. It appeared that six months did not do much to dull memories of the last party. Standing in a secluded corner on his own, he just watched everyone meander from room to room, mingling and chatting and creating a general hum of useless conversation. The whole thing made him sick, and he could do nothing to alleviate his boredom since his mother was checking in on him every few minutes to make sure he wasn't imbibing more than a thimbleful of wine. It appeared, also, that his reputation preceded him as even people he had never met were avoiding him. Unfortunately, the night was still young, which meant he would be here for much, much longer. 

A tinkling laugh in one of the other rooms rose over the monotonous drone of the assembled, distracting Jared from his self-pity. Curious as to the origin, he followed the echoes of the laugh to see River Tam teasing her elder brother Simon. Doing his best to act as boring as the rest of the attendees, Simon was trying to quiet River down while still maintain a semblance of adult-ness. The fourteen-year-old River was having none of it, dancing circles around her brother in graceful pirouettes and chasses. Though he didn't know the Tams personally, everyone knew how the siblings were consummate geniuses, both attending the most prestigious schools with bright futures ahead of them. Enjoying the distraction, Jared thought she must be the most gifted dancer he had ever seen, and she probably was the most talented in the Core. Even as he watched her dancing through the throng, a tall man in a plain suit touched River's arm, and she stopped suddenly. He spoke a few words to her, to which she nodded, a little nervously it seemed to Jared, but she let him guide her away into another room. 

Deprived of his brief entertainment, Jared began to walk back to his corner when he caught the eye of a man at the other end of the room. Oddly enough, he had a very similar suit to the man who pulled River aside. Something told Jared he should go talk to him. 

* * *

Jared was tired. He hardly got a minute's rest these days, what with all the training the Alliance was putting him through. Day in and day out, the same routine. Up at 5 a.m., mess hall by 5:30 for rations, a brief workout from 6 to 8, arms lessons from 8-11, arms training from 11-1, more rations at 1, another workout from 1:30 to 3, behavioral training from 3-4, hand-to-hand combat training from 4-5, more rations at 5, demolitions and security lessons from 5:30 to 7, an hour of quiet time and lights out by 8. Sometimes he felt like the training would kill him, that he couldn't possibly survive the things he did, but then he would remember what happened to other trainees who tried to back out, and his resolve would harden. The last guy who wanted to leave, Hanford, decided in the middle of arms training that he was done with it all. Their instructor calmly listened to him, cocked the shotgun in his hand, and blew the guy's head off. No one said a word, just went back to their training, and this more than the meaningless death shook Jared to his core. These were people who thought nothing of human life. If he wanted to live, he would have to believe the same thing. 

Every once in a while he wondered what his mother would think if she knew what he was doing here. He wrote letters every week, but never told her what was really going on. Today they took a tour of Ariel's hospital system to get a sense of the bureaucracy at work. Tomorrow they would go to a colloquium about the War of Unification. All lies, and it didn't really matter because Jared doubted his prim and proper mother would understand what he was becoming. The other day he had been walking through the "medical" facility. People who went there never came back. The philosophy was that if you couldn't keep yourself healthy enough to stay out of that wing, you didn't deserve to go back into training. From various doors he heard screams, crying, pleading, but no people in sight. Usually Jared just walked through on whatever business he had been sent on, but that day he had seen people for the first time. It came as something of a shock, because the person standing before him was River Tam. Her hands were covered in blood, but she didn't seem to notice. This in itself would not have fazed Jared except for the fact that her eyes did not have the glazed over look that most people in the facility adopted. His gaze locked into hers, and what he saw sent a deadly chill down his spine. 

"I know you," she said. 

Jared was dumbfounded. He had never actually met River back home, just heard about her from his mother, so he had always assumed that she knew nothing of him. Fishing around in his mind for something to say, he almost missed her next words. 

"I don't belong here. They think they know what I'm for, but they're wrong. My mind's all twisted and gone bad. You can't be here, this is a twisting, I'm not dreaming. My brother, you know my brother, you can tell Simon. Tell him I'll be home soon..." 

Her babbling continued into a low mumble, her eyes slid away from his to her hands. As she looked at her hands, it seemed as though something opened up inside of her, a horror mixed with elation. Her gaze jerked back up to his and spoke again, but this time her words were not the frightened jumble of before, but strong and full of conviction, "I killed one of them. Dr. Mathias told me to, it was my mission. I need a mission. They built me for something, but there...nothing. They're building you too. You're becoming nothing." 

The flatness of her voice, the empty vastness of her eyes filled Jared with a kind of mortal fear he had never experienced before. Stumbling backwards, he ran out of the facility back to his quarters, not even caring that he would get a lashing later for completing his assignment. 

* * *

After that frightening encounter, Jared's training took a turn for the worse. His instructors could sense the difference in him, the way he couldn't concentrate on assignments and lessons. The beatings he got for his negligence were more painful even than those he first received as a wet-behind-the-ears recruit. They were disappointed in him, and dangerously close to rejecting him like so many others. It got to a point where he almost didn't care anymore. Remembering the look in River Tam's eyes, how she seemed dead to the world, made Jared sick with revulsion at what was going on in the very buildings he slept in, ate in, lived in. For a while, he had convinced himself that he didn't care about humanity, about the world, but now he didn't care about himself; he just didn't want to be an automaton that carved people into soulless vessels and poured pain into them. He knew he couldn't be that. The only thought that gave him any kind of comfort was that no one had seen his encounter with the girl. Had a higher ranking officer seen the episode, Jared knew he would be dead already. Unfortunately, he was about to find out how wrong he could be. 

Following a particularly bad day of lessons and training, Jared had reached his limit where all he wanted was to drop into bed and pass out from mental and physical exhaustion. Perhaps if he hadn't been so fatigued, he might have sensed the danger ahead of him and escaped. But fate didn't want it that way. When he opened the door to his sparse living quarters, there were two men standing in the middle of the room. The 10fx15f space was barely enough for a small chest, a bed, a table and one chair, but these men had a way of making the very air pull away in an effort to avoid contact. They had an aura that kept a certain area surrounding their bodies clear at all times, and so everything from the particles of wood in his furniture to the very molecules of air obliged. Jared almost ran out of there himself, but their cold gaze held him frozen, commanding him to enter and shut the door. He didn't realize at first that neither man had given such an order, but he carried it out anyway and stood at attention, waiting for one of them to speak. In the silence, Jared noticed that both men wore blue gloves, a strangeness he didn't particularly want to dwell on. 

"We had heard great things of you, Jared Keen," they said. "However, you have in recent days been lagging behind your fellow trainees." In actuality, only one of them spoke, but it was in such a way that Jared could have sworn that both men uttered the words. It gave him a chilling feeling of vulnerability. 

"I've been doing my best..." 

"No, you haven't. In fact, you've been lying to us for quite some time. Did you think we wouldn't be able to discern the difference?" 

Confused, Jared tried to force out some explanation, but they stopped him. "We do not need to hear anything from you. We already know everything. You are our creature, just as River Tam is. It is time you learned your true purpose in being here." 

He couldn't argue, couldn't resist, and so even though neither man laid a hand on him, Jared found himself following him out of the living quarters back the medical wing. The fluorescent lights washed out any color, except for the blue of the two men's hands. This sterile environment had never bothered him before, but now Jared could feel what it hid: death and pain. Cleanliness and order was a mask covering the ugly, rotting truth behind this whole facility, and he had blindly turned away from this reality. Jared didn't know where they were going or what was going to happen, but he knew he wouldn't, couldn't survive. 

Finally they approached a plain, unmarked door like any other. One man opened the door, the other gestured that Jared should enter. Unable to act independently of their will, he reluctantly stepped inside. A stainless steel chair sat in the middle of the room across from a one-way mirror, nothing else. Jared wondered briefly who might be watching from the other side. The same fluorescent glow from the hallway lit this chamber, but somehow this light chilled him even more. He knew he was supposed to sit in the chair. He didn't want to, but there was nothing else he could do. Jared sat down. The two men entered, closed the door, and stood on either side of him. They gazed into the mirror as if they could see through it, and Jared thought that it wouldn't surprise him if they could. Their gazed returned to him, seated in the chair. And then the pain started.

* * *

 

 

 

 

 

 

Title:   **Lost Bearings**   
Series Name:   **Beginnings**   
Author:   **Shiroi Sakana**   
Details:   **Work-In-Progress**  |  **PG-13**  |  **gen**  |  **13k**  |  **02/02/06**   
Characters:  Simon, River, Other \- Jared Keen, an officer of the Alliance   
Summary:  How exactly did Simon rescue River from the Academy? Here we begin with the unlikely ally he found on the inside.   
  



End file.
